Olivia Jade talks ‘being publicly shamed’ for college admissions scandal: ‘We’re all very quick to judge’
Olivia Jade Giannulli is opening up about her public shaming in the wake of the college admissions scandal that sent her parents Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli to prison.
Fuller House star Loughlin, 56, and fashion designer Giannulli, 57, were sentenced to prison last year after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges for their roles in the 2019 college admissions scandal. The married couple paid $500,000 in bribes to college coach William “Rick” Singer who helped admit their daughters Olivia Jade, 21, and Isabella Giannulli, 22, into the University of Southern California by misrepresenting them as crew athletes. In December, Loughlin was released from federal prison after two months while Giannulli is currently serving a five-month term with a release date of April 17.
On Friday, Olivia Jade, 21, shared a TikTok video sharing advice from “a very inspirational woman."
"We were talking about being publicly shamed, and I was like, 'Well, my situation doesn't even compare, I'm not even going to start to compare it to yours," said Olivia Jade. "And she looked at me and said, 'Olivia, it doesn't matter if I'm drowning in 60 feet of water and you're drowning in 30, we're both still drowning.’
The beauty vlogger continued, “I think about that quote every day because I think it's so true and it's such a bigger message to our world right now. I think we're all very quick to judge. I think we're all very quick to put people down. And I just want people to remember, if your feelings are hurting, if they're valid to you, they're valid. And it doesn't matter if someone is going through worse. You're allowed to have a hard time in this world. But that doesn't take away from somebody else, and that shouldn't take away from you. We're all human beings."
When her parents were identified as suspects in the story that rocked the country, the social media influencer lost brand deals with Sephora, Amazon, Marc Jacobs Beauty and several more. Last December, she broke her silence on Red Table Talk, a Facebook Watch talk show hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith, her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones and her daughter Willow Smith.
“I’m not trying to victimize myself,” Olivia Jade said on the show. “I don’t want pity, I don’t deserve pity. We messed up” and insisted her parents were “good people.”
She explained, “I think that what hasn’t been super public is that there is no justifying or excusing what happened because what happened is wrong. I think every single person in my family can be like, ‘That was messed up. That was a big mistake.’ But I think what’s so important to me is to learn from the mistake, not to now be shamed and punished and never be given a second chance. I’m 21, I feel like I deserve a second chance to redeem myself, to show I’ve grown.”
Olivia Jade admitted that she initially did not realize that the actions of her parents were wrong. “I feel like a huge part of having privilege is not knowing you have privilege,” she said adding, “I understood that people were upset and angry and maybe it took me a little bit longer to understand what for, but man am I glad I did realize what for. Better late than never.”
Related: Olivia Jade claps back at troll commenting on her family's scandal
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
